Holmes: Is Clinton a victim of sexism?

A friend writes from Maine: "the electioneering is now like water torture." The longer it goes on, the more painful it becomes. Drip, drip, drip, boring a hole into your skull.

Rick Holmes

A friend writes from Maine: "the electioneering is now like water torture." The longer it goes on, the more painful it becomes. Drip, drip, drip, boring a hole into your skull.

The Democrats have spent months picking over comments, innuendoes and exit polls for signs of racism. Are voters racists? Are we racists for saying they are racists? Drip, drip, drip.

Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and a thousand analysts have spent weeks talking about white working class voters in ways that are insulting to everyone. If people who vote for Hillary are racists, are those who vote for Obama elitists?

Over the weekend, the campaign stopped obsessing for a moment about hidden prejudices to contemplate how assassinations can be campaign game-changers. Drip, drip, drip. It's enough to make you long for a good debate over health insurance mandates.

Now sexism rears its ugly head. Or does it?

Clinton sees it, and so do some of her supporters. "It does seem as though the press at least is not as bothered by the incredible vitriol that has been engendered by comments and reactions of people who are nothing but misogynists."

Clinton hasn't been pressed for specifics on the "incredible vitriol," but here are some of the incidents I've heard cited by her supporters:

Two hecklers shouted "Iron my shirt," at a Clinton appearance in New Hampshire in early January, a comment Geraldine Ferraro recently said would have been more roundly condemned if the sexist, pro-Obama media would report it. Really? These candidates face hecklers almost every day, but this is the only incident that has made it into the campaign narrative, and it's always condemned, never endorsed. The New Hampshire hecklers, it later turned out, were part of a stupid talk-radio prank, not misogynists on a mission to show the sexism that lurks in the hearts of those who don't like Hillary.

Ferraro also cited an early debate at which all the male candidates on the stage "ganged up" on Clinton. But Clinton was the front-runner at the time, which is why she attracted their fire. Should they have been more gentle with her because she's a woman? At a later debate, Clinton complained that the moderators made her answer first more than her opponent. Is that sexism, chivalry, or just coincidence? Is it a bad thing to get to answer first? At a campaign event in South Carolina in November, a woman asked McCain "how do we beat the bitch?" Crude, certainly, and perhaps vitriolic. But when a Republican woman insults a Democratic woman, is it sexist? A Washington Post fashion reporter remarked on the "cleavage" Clinton allegedly showed during a speech on the Senate floor, which then became a story harped on for a news cycle or two by infantile cable TV commentators and sparked outrage from Clinton supporters. The cleavage article appeared July 20, 2007, and Ferraro and others are still talking about it.

With all these incidents, the echoes of outrage were far louder than the initial reports. And note the dates. If this campaign was really plagued by misogyny, would we have to prove it by pointing at things said last July, last November, last January?

If sexism isn't necessarily a factor in this campaign, feminism is. From the beginning, Clinton has used her gender as a talking point, imploring voters to join her cause for the sake of their daughters and granddaughters. That message has resonated with millions of voters, especially older women. The "gender pride" that inspires their votes is no more sexist than the pride that draws African-Americans to Obama is racist.

But when you make gender a big reason why people should vote for you, it's easy to conclude that gender is why people are voting against you - even if there's little evidence to support it.

Because she owes most of her prominence to her husband, Hillary Clinton is an imperfect vessel for feminist hopes. But she sailed that vessel as far as it would take her, convincing a lot of women along the way that she - and only she - could break "the ultimate glass ceiling."

That's never been true. Plenty of talented, ambitious women are on the rise in Washington and the state capitals. But Clinton has created a narrative of entitlement and victimization that may torture Democrats all the way to November.

Drip, drip, drip.

Rick Holmes, opinion editor of the MetroWest Daily News, blogs at Holmes & Co. (http://blogs.townonline.com/holmesandco). He can be reached at rholmes@cnc.com.

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